Joseph Schumpeter
Creative destruction, entrepreneurship theory
Most quoted
"In capitalist reality as distinct from its textbook picture, it is not that kind of competition which counts but the competition from the new commodity, the new technology, the new source of supply, the new type of organization which commands a decisive cost or quality advantage and which strikes not at the margins of the profits and the outputs of the existing firms but at their foundations and their very lives."
— from Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 1942
"The function of the entrepreneur is to reform or revolutionize the pattern of production by exploiting an invention or, more generally, an untried technological possibility for producing a new commodity or producing an old one in a new way, by opening up a new source of supply of materials or a new outlet for products, by reorganizing an industry and so on."
— from The Theory of Economic Development, 1934
"The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop and factory to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one."
— from Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 1942
All quotes by Joseph Schumpeter (318)
The economist's tools are logic and observation.
My life has been a journey of intellectual exploration.
The future belongs to those who innovate.
The intellectual's duty is to speak truth to power.
The economic process is a process of continuous change and adaptation.
I have always been a seeker of knowledge, a lifelong learner.
The capitalist system is a system of constant evolution.
The economist must be a keen observer of human behavior.
My work is my passion, my life's calling.
The only constant in economics is change.
The intellectual's role is to provoke thought, not to provide answers.
The economic process is a process of creative destruction and renewal.
I have always been drawn to the big questions, the fundamental problems of economics.
Can capitalism survive? No. I do not think it can.
The capitalist process, by substituting a mere parcel of shares for the walls of the factory and the machines in it, makes ownership impersonal and uncorporeal; it makes it a mere claim to the dividends that are to be expected from it.
The perfectly competitive economy is a theoretical construct that has little to do with the real world.
Economic development is not a phenomenon that can be explained by external factors, but by internal ones.
The capitalist engine is first and last an engine of mass production which, as a rule, also means production for the masses.
The entrepreneur is essentially a man who does new things or who does old things in a new way.
The entrepreneur is the prime mover in capitalist society.
Contemporaries of Joseph Schumpeter
Other Economicss born within 50 years of Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950).